During his keynote at the TWTRCON conference yesterday in San Francisco, Steve Rubel showed off a mind map he made entitled “The Future of Twitter.” The map, which I’ve embedded below with his permission, is an interesting way to look at the state of the service.
It starts out branching into two different directions: “Twitter and the Ecosystem,” and “Twitter as an OS.” One side shows what could happen to Twitter in the future from possible threats (of services that can kill it), to companies that could acquire it, to those that it could acquire. The other side shows Twitter as a social OS versus its role as a marketing OS. From there it goes into its role as a platform, and the rise of the apps based around it.
The map is a good look into what is becoming an increasingly complex web of relationships involving Twitter on the Internet. As the service continues to gain popularity, this web will only continue to expand unless one of the threats destroys it or if a larger company acquires it. Rubel has more in his post on the matter. Brian Solis‘ and Jess3’s Twitterverse diagram also offers a good visual look into the state of Twitter.
Click on the image for a larger view
[photo: flickr/steverubel]
Jesus Man! Don’t you spend sometimes visiting in any other websites?
If he’s paid by the number of times he writes about twitter he’s destined for the forbes 400 list.
Interesting. I like how he keeps the options open, or at least makes it look like he does.
I think the most accurate word on the whole map is “boredom.”
This is missing a little on the right side; Microsoft Office should really be more Groove, SharePoint collaboration, and their comm server tech; there’s no mention of Adobe who has some stake in this space, as well as Apple… it’s a good start, but I’m anxious to see what comes after the ‘boredom’ part myself…
Interesting. I blogged about something related:
http://patricia...s-services-play
I think people spend way too much time analyzing this stuff and not enough time looking at what the web is designed to do as a platform — everything you want to know is there, now and for the future.
Definitely wonder what Twitter thinks about as a good exit. IPO? acquisition? Would be interesting to know what their investors are looking for.
MG, you wrote only 1 Twitter post today??? What’s wrong with you? You owe us 4 more today… that’s TwitterCrunch standard afterall!
this is very interesting. Maybe I should start using my imindi beta invite….:-)
Interesting to see 37signals in the list. The fact that twitter is by far the most popular web app build on the RoR framework makes me wonder what their current relation is (if there is one at all).
Pretty cool. I like the thought that has been put into this. Thanks for sharing.
I think Twitter is getting a little too big for its britches. Come on, Twitter as an OS?
I found a twitter easter egg. Go to settings. Change screen name to bing_411 , upload a new picture and follow the white rabbit.
For thing is for sure, they won’t be acquired by General Motors
Twitter as an OS may just be the most retarded thing I have heard of this year.
Why not Twitter as a small car manufacturer or Twitter as a method of social justice?
TwitterOS – R o f l
twitter OS?!?! stretching it there. otherwise cool graphic.
A world of possibilities although I can’t imagine Twitter would entertain aquiring one of the various air clients, Tweetdeck, Seesmic etc.
Open access to Twitters API has been a driving force in their growth by stimulating competition between developers to create the most useful or fun way to visualize and manage the masses of tweets, friends, followers etc.
An aquisition would kill competition between developers and lead to a slowdown in the evolution of the service.
It all comes down to one thing: Everything leads to [insert appropriate words here]
But thats a load of BS because despite claiming otherwise, people like that with mindmaps that arcane want everything to lead to them…
With people like Steve Rubel – and anyone else at the centre of attention at glossy conferences like this, they want [the answer] to be “ME”
But it’s NOT GONNA HAPPEN! Smell the coffee! you’re interesting but not the most important person in the room.
I just wasted 2 minutes of my life reading this worthless bullshit.
MG: write about something else for the love of God.
…and an extra minute doing your pointless reply!! (see above) and LIGHTEN UP
Interesting diagram. OS, no. Protocol, sure.
I posted about this a while back – Twitter can be a solid protocol for other sites to leverage.
Robin was upset that Twitter didn’t have filters to get rid of spam. But I suggested that Twitter should not have filters. Rather, third parties should develop filters (such as Summize) on top of Twitter using it’s protocol.
I’d like to see Twitter remain simple. And malleable. So, any feature or modification applied to Twitter should be very basic/core, and advanced mods applied to satellite sites and applications.
A protocol on top of an existing protocol? last time I checked twitter sat on top of http
You obviously don’t know that protocols often “sit on top” of other protocols. The Internet has multiple layers of protocols.
The HTTP protocol sits on top of the TCP protocol, which sits on top of the IP protocol, which sits on top of the many data link protocols (Ethernet, ATM, PPP, etc.), which sit on top of the many physical protocols (SONET, DSL, 802.11, etc.).
Wow! They do have some future planned! Twitter OS, Twitter Social etc. I hope they succeed.
As always, better to see these maps in zooming. Here is the zoomable, and downloadable (right clic), version: http://bit.ly/ZxInh
for some odd reason… I don’t think twitter will have opportunity to buy google… we’d of already seen a successful model
*for generating revenues
Twitter as OS? I LOL’D!!
Man, am I getting tired of this web 2.0 BS. Facebook as OS, Google as OS and now twitter as OS. Cool story bro, but it ain’t going to happen. This is stupid.
twitter is a good way to sharing the knowledge and a person can take alot of knowledge from the twitter. so twitter is a social networking site,
WTF?!? Seriously. Get it into perspective. Twitter is a two bit blogging service. People just like the effin name. It constantly craps out. An OS?!? This is more mindless fodder from idiots thinking they are clever. This is crap. Twitter is crap. It is the MySpace of Microblogging and whoever becomes the Facebook of Microblogging will overshadow them. Biz and Ev seem far more interested in being famous than anything else. Can’t wait to see the Twitter TV Show! That’s gonna be fanfriggintastic. They should call it Twitter Jumps The Shark.
You left out mention of Google Wave in the chart. Seems it should be in there in a couple places.
Harry “still hanging in the shadows” Wang
Twitter buys 37signals?
Jeeeezuz. Was that planted as a joke?
I’m sorry, but when will this idiocy stop? Rubel and others like him are snake-oil salesmen giving horrible advice to dimwitted converts who lap it up and ask for more. There are plenty of smart, sensible people out there in adland and we need to start calling these people out for what they are. Yes, I recognize that the talk was given in an appropriate venue and I appreciate MG documenting this, but I still defend my right to be sick and tired of this BS.